


I won't promise you the stars

by Not_So_Secretly_a_Spaceship, Wolf_Storm



Series: A Pile Of Bones [9]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Childhood Trauma, Established Relationship, F/M, Flashbacks, Loss of Parent(s), Mentioned Original Characters - Freeform, Nightmares, Pain, Post-Battle of Scarif, Sleepy Cuddles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-10-23 11:04:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10718127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Not_So_Secretly_a_Spaceship/pseuds/Not_So_Secretly_a_Spaceship, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolf_Storm/pseuds/Wolf_Storm
Summary: Most nights, Cassian Andor doesn’t dream. Some nights he curls up into himself, or - preferably - around Jyn Erso and remembers nothing of the time that passes between that and awareness coming back some hours later. Some nights, sleep won’t come even if he tries.When he dreams, he dreams in vivid colors and smells and tastes and touches he’s either forgotten long ago or tries very hard not to remember anymore.





	I won't promise you the stars

**Author's Note:**

> MY THESIS IS DONE FRIENDS, I AM BACK!
> 
> That's Good News No. 1. I've got one exam left till finals, so that's Good News No. 2. This time next month, I can potentially be a proud owner of a Masters Degree, that's Good News No. 3.
> 
> A Very Very Bad News, however, is that finals are in a month, holy shit. In the meantime, have this thing that made Spaceship cry (she said so, not me haha). 
> 
> For good understanding of references in this fic I recommend reading [Like Creatures In The Wind](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9522011)first and [A Pile of Bones](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9145375) second. Of course, read the entire series (mwhahaha) but these two are the most essential.  
> I'm cooking something big and painful for you all this time so, watch out if you're hungry for more feels.
> 
> Title and a tiny piece of dialogue taken from My Kind of Love by Emeli Sandé, which is, in my very humble opinion, the most Rebelcaptain song ever.

Most nights, Cassian Andor doesn’t dream. Some nights he curls up into himself, or (preferably) around Jyn Erso and remembers nothing of the time that passes between that and awareness coming back some hours later. Some nights, sleep won’t come even if he tries.

When he dreams, he dreams in vivid colors and smells and tastes and touches he’s either forgotten long ago or tries very hard not to remember anymore.

There’s nothing like the glow of the Death Star’s rays hitting the surface of a brilliantly blue world; nothing like the golden blaze of doom reflected in the waters of Scarif, rushing closer at him. The deep hum of it, growing louder and louder to the point he can feel the buzz of it in his insides, sounds awfully similar to the buzz of flames that once lit up a small house where a woman with a kind smile and sad, dark eyes promised she would be right back, if only he waited for a little while like the good boy he was.

(“I love you, Cassian,” she would whisper over the roar of the fire above them as she’d put him into the stone basement where breathing came easier and the heat wasn’t searing. “I love you, my baby. I’ll get us out of here, alright? Just wait here for a bit. You’re a good boy. Be a good boy for mama, will you? I’ll be right back for you.”

Cassian waited and waited in the safest corner while the house he was born in fell apart around him, he could barely breathe and he was afraid. He remembers the men who picked him up the next day; still remembers dozing off pressed into somebody’s side as someone else says, “must have been a good mum - put the boy in the only corner with nothing to collapse on him and went to make a way out. What a waste, such a brave woman.”)

It felt unfair then and it still does, in his dreams - he did what he was told, he waited and waited at the spot just as he was told, and still mama never came back. He can feel her around here, though, like she’s coming for him just before the end. Like he’s destined to watch her be taken away from him again, like he hasn’t lived through it enough times already; like the fires of Fest have to be replaced by the fires of Scarif to do the job once again. He can hardly remember his mother’s face, her voice, what it felt like when she took him in her arms (he doesn’t remember any of it precisely, but he remembers himself  _ remembering it _ and losing the first-hand memories over time feels like a slap in the face) but it mustn’t have been very different to Jyn holding him in her arms on the beach - Jyn, who protected him from the blast the best she could; Jyn, who ditched her own chances of survival to share death with him; Jyn, who just lost a leg and still cared most about what he needed; Jyn, who kisses like she’s running out of time and makes love to him like the world is about to end. Jyn, who says that he always comes back to her, like she isn’t the only tether that keeps him from floating into the cold, dark beyond.

He can feel himself burning - burning in flames and light alike, his mother’s anonymized face all around and Jyn in his arms, he can see Bodhi and Baze and Chirrut and all his men at his feet, long turned to flames and ash; Jyn turning into stardust but he’s still burning, throat full of dust and soot, and Draven’s voice is echoing in his ears,  _ must have been a good friend - put herself to face the blast so he wouldn’t have to see it coming, _ and he’s choking for real -

“Cassian. Cassian, it’s okay. Calm down.”

He becomes aware that he’s sitting up with blankets pooled around his waist, that it’s dark and (up till now) quiet and he’s in their bed, not on the beach, and that he’s swallowing air in rapid gulps that barely help the feeling that he’s going to suffocate any second now. 

(He’s not on the verge of sobbing and the burning in his eyes is just from the cold, or so he would claim under an oath.)

Jyn’s arms descend around him, slowly but surely, and she’s sitting next to him, pulling at him till he takes the hint and melts into her embrace.

“It’s okay,” she’s whispering into his ear and her hands caress his back like feathers. He should be terrified at how well she knows how to work him, how quickly she’s got him under control, but the feeling that comes through the fear that lingers from the dream is gratefulness. “It’s okay. You’re here. It’s gone.”

He exhales slowly and wraps himself around her, burrowing in a safety nest where he can feel her heart beating steadily. Her fingers run through his hair. They’re safe. They escaped. They didn’t burn to death; not him and Jyn, not this time.

“Not the beach?” she asks softly, even though it sounds half like a statement. They both flash back to Scarif in all its glory way too often for it to still be surprising. There are other things beyond them that cut deeper than rich blue, searing yellow and imperial grey.

“The beach,” he replies, equally hollow, and curls up tighter into her. “My mom. She was there.”

There’s nothing that Jyn can say to that - nothing of substance, anyway. She could offer that she knows how it feels, that she still wakes up in the dead of the night with her mother falling into the grass. That even awake, she is caught up with the memories of holding her father’s cooling body against her, feeling the phantom rain drenching her to the bone. She rarely tells Cassian - she doesn’t have to. 

(He tends to sense out when she’s thinking of Galen, judging by the melancholy that that he adopts in these moments, the guilt he still feels being an almost palpable part of his very being. Sometimes it’s almost as if he’s more remorse than man, like it’s a shadow of a past she lives with instead of a person. Those times are the hardest.)

So she keeps silent, waiting for him to say more if that’s what he feels like doing. Sometimes talking things out seems to help him, sometimes not. She presses a soft, tender kiss to his brow and covers his cheek with the palm of her hand. It speaks same amount about what she feels, what they are, as what they put into words, and the peace and tranquility of this moment is something that  Jyn doesn’t wish to shatter.

_ I forgive you. I’m here for you. I want to help you. I love you.  _

“The beach,” Cassian says quietly after a while of silence, having taken time to arrange his thoughts. “We… died. Mama, she was there too.” He swallows nervously. “She burned with us.”

“We’re here, Cassian,” Jyn whispers soothingly, and slowly tips them over so that they both land on the mattress on their sides, still closely entwined in each other’s arms. She places his hand against where her heartbeat pulses on the side of her throat. “I’m here.”

“I know,” he replies, straining to lay a gentle, grateful peck on her forehead. “I know, Jyn.”

He hasn’t told her all of his parents, but he’s told her enough. Most of what he remembers, anyway. She understands - she did even before that of course, having gone through the same when she was not much older than him.

_ (“Why are you pushing yourself so bloody hard?” she would ask for about a dozenth time, following yet another instance when he worked himself nearly to the point of collapse. _

_ “For mama,” he would say, dizzy with fatigue and barriers long shed into dust. “Mama gave her life so that I could live. So I have her life now, you see? I have to make the best of it, I can’t squander it for nothing.” _

_ “You’re hardly in any danger of being accused of that,” she scoffed, but her eyes turned tender. “She would want you to live, Cassian, not to die forsaken in a ditch.” _

_ He yawned, “like you’d ever let that happen.”) _

“Try to sleep,” she breathes and runs the back of her fingers lightly along his cheekbone. She can feel his eyelashes flutter against her skin briefly, but he settles easily enough.

Jyn doesn’t close her eyes until she is absolutely sure that Cassian is already asleep.

***

Jyn is woken up not long after, judging by how disoriented she is. It takes her several inhales to realize she is safe in bed and that it’s still nighttime.

She can feel Cassian’s arms trashing around her and his body twitching as if hit by a bolt of electricity, which is quite unlike him. She can’t see his face but could hazard a guess that there’s a frown creasing it, or a pained grimace, instead of the relaxed expression he usually wears when asleep.

(Cassian only moves around in his sleep when cuddling up to her or having a particularly bad dream, otherwise he lies motionless, barely breathing, quiet like the dead - like a sniper waiting for a kill. In the beginning of their co-habitance Jyn would even check on him during the nights that he’s, in fact, alive. Jyn, who never stays still, who unknowingly landed a few good kicks into him before her unconscious mind got used to sharing her bed with someone who was not a threat.)

She can hear him making soft, quiet noises of protest that float around “no” and “please” and then, “Nell”.

_ Well, that does it,  _ she thinks. Not that she’s jealous of a girl she’s never met - no, far from that. Cassian doesn’t dream of Nell Merasska because he wants to, and Jyn can’t feel envy of someone who, more than a decade after her death, still haunts him in his sleep.

(Once Jyn asked Cassian about the girl, after she first heard him speak her name in his sleep. That’s how she knows of the tragedy that unfolded, that drove Cassian at such young age to end the lives of two children under his command. She knows that while he eventually recovered from the ordeal, being in peace with it is impossible to achieve.

Chirrut was right when he said that Cassian carried his prison in himself with every step he took.)

She lightly puts her hands on his arms - mindful of how she nearly got punched in the face the one time she touched his face first - into hers and says his name in a firm yet soothing voice. She waits several seconds to see if he reacts. He doesn’t, still trapped in the throes of his subconscious hell.

“Cassian,” she tries it again, louder. “Shh, Cass. It’s good. It’s fine.”

Cassian doesn’t shoot up ask he wakes like he did just before, but the moment his eyes snap open is just as forceful. He takes a wheezing breath and his whole body jerks in place, and suddenly she can see him looking around in the darkness that’s covering them, confused and lost, the nightmares still keeping their hold on him.

“Nell -”

“No, Cassian.” Jyn takes his face into her hands. “She’s gone. She’s at peace. You’re here with me.”

His hands are shaking where they twist into her shirt, grab on her skin, checking that she’s warm and soft and alive. He’s pulling her to him

Jyn tips her head to touch her forehead to his. “You’re here. Safe.”

“Jyn,” he sighs and his entire body visibly deflates, all fight going out of him.

_ What’s gotten into you tonight, _ she almost asks, but stops herself. There’s no point in digging in when he’s tired and vulnerable. What is there to say, anyway? Neither of them choose what their unconscious mind projects for them. Both of them still sit with Bodhi through the nights when he wakes up in flames, screaming. And Cassian himself never hesitates to tend to her every time she relives the deaths of all her parents; when Krennic shoots him down the data tower; when she goes through all the things she had to do to survive alone again, all those who tried to kill her; when Bones is cutting off her leg over and over again. Cassian is never far, always leaving something behind even if he himself is away on an assignment.

So if Nell is, in a way, a part of their lives that emerges unpredictably when they are least ready to face her? They can take it, together.

_ (“Did you love her?” she asked, once, without a trace of jealousy in her voice.  _

_ He thought about his answer for a short while, then - “I don’t think I did, not  _ before _. After she was gone, I - I think I made myself believe it. It made sense. To love her.” _

_ “It made the guilt bearable,” she mused. She herself had rationalized many emotions in her life, regardless of how insincere a mirage it made. As long as it fit the narrative, she didn’t care. _

_ “Now I realize that what I loved was an illusion.” His eyes dropped to hers, and he cupped her cheek in his hand. “It wasn’t Nell, it was what I projected into her, to excuse why I wasn’t able to move on. Now it feels like defiling her memory, because it wasn’t true.”  _

_ “You were close, though,” she pointed out, quietly. _

_ He frowned a bit. “We were kids. She was twelve. Whatever I felt for her, it wasn’t - not this way, never,” he said, waving his hand between where their half-dressed bodies were wrapped together. “She was easy to be with, I guess. Easy friend. I liked her, but not the way I love you.” _

_ Her cheeks flushed, and all she could reply was, “Oh.” _

_ Cassian pressed his lips to hers. “My heart beats for you, Jyn.”) _

“Will you be able to sleep some more?” she asks him, when she feels his heartbeat has returned back to normal. He’s not trembling anymore, either.

Cassian shakes his head at that. “Don’t think so. Not now, anyway. There’s no point.” His hand finds hers - still placed on his cheek, fingers in his hair - and gives her a squeeze. “I’m sorry.”

“Shh, don’t be,” she coos and kisses him, a light, comforting peck ot the corner of his mouth. “I’ll need to, though, for a few hours more at least.”

“Sure,” he nods, and crawls up higher on the cot, putting both of their thin, meagre pillows underneath his back and shoulders so he’s a bit closer to half-sitting. When he gets comfortable he draws her to him, letting her fit easily into his side with her head nestled on his shoulder. The crown on her head is within easy reach for him to bury his face in her hair.

“Te amo,” she mumbles sleepily, her eyes already closing again.

“I love you, too” he whispers back, his voice raw and open. “Sleep.”

  
  



End file.
